My company is giving our graphics dept. hell right now about trying to update their Mac boxes (to OS X ones). They currently have some old machines running OS 9.2.1 Corporate is saying that they should use the company standard Windows 2000 machines. Any thing else would require a 'deviation request'. Part of filling out this request is providing concrete reasons why Macs are better than window 2000 machines.

I'm looking for business oriented items. The graphics dept. is crying foul over the possible data corruption in specialized font conversion, but management is pissing on the weaties with a few 'Mac to PC' conversion utilities that claim to nullify their argument.

The industry is automotive with a lot of vector based Illustrator work and 3D light wave work.

Macs are PD 1 Gig, 10.1.5, Illustrator, ATM, Photoshop, etc.

Window are HP Visualize X4000's. PD 2 Ghz, Windows 2000.

Your help in the cost/deviation justification is greatly appreciated.

Short answer: Conversion utilities, always an iffy proposition, only convert the overall file format. They cannot convert fonts. They get substituted, and that only happens once you go in and do it manually. This is rarely a good thing. The text re-flows and makes a mess of the layout.

Do they really want to pay someone to open each file, change the fonts and re-fit the copy?

In my personal experience, even opening a Word for Windows document (whose file format is identical to the Mac version) can be fraught with peril. I shudder to think what would happen with something more complicated, like your 3D stuff.

In addition, if the staff has been working with Macs all this time, a platform switch will, at best, result in a dip in productivity as keyboard commands are relearned, etc. At worst, and more likely, you'll have a grumpy staff. (Truth be known, you'll probably have a lull either way, since OS X is so drastically different from 9.)

For other reasons, look at the Apple site, especially the "Switch" and OS X sections. You should be able to find plenty of information on how well OS X works in Windows environments/networks. That's probably their main (legitimate) concern. But X is drastically different from previous systems in that regard. Also, it's tons more stable than previous systems.

Okay, this answer was not so short. Hope it helps.

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Halogen wrote:
My company is giving our graphics dept. hell right now about trying to update their Mac boxes (to OS X ones). They currently have some old machines running OS 9.2.1 Corporate is saying that they should use the company standard Windows 2000 machines. Any thing else would require a 'deviation request'. Part of filling out this request is providing concrete reasons why Macs are better than window 2000 machines.

I'm looking for business oriented items. The graphics dept. is crying foul over the possible data corruption in specialized font conversion, but management is pissing on the weaties with a few 'Mac to PC' conversion utilities that claim to nullify their argument.

The industry is automotive with a lot of vector based Illustrator work and 3D light wave work.

Macs are PD 1 Gig, 10.1.5, Illustrator, ATM, Photoshop, etc.

Window are HP Visualize X4000's. PD 2 Ghz, Windows 2000.

Your help in the cost/deviation justification is greatly appreciated.

Lightwave of course is available for Mac. And for that matter there are several 3-d programs listed at http://www.architosh.com/ Some of which will even help integrate into any Autocad work they might be doing. I've got some valuable links here too: http://www.macmaps.com/1mac.html and you should look at http://www.macwindows.com/

I've told them as well that the design staff would pretty much leave (any of the good ones at least). Soft argument though.

And the 'works with windows' argument doesn work too well, because a Windows machine would always work better in a pure windows environment than a Mac (even with Jagwire). [too much damn proprietary crap].

How much time do you have to put this together? I imagine we can definitely come up with 10 concrete reasons for you to use.

One thing I would try to do on your end, if possible, is to get the amount of downtime the Windows machines in your company have, versus the amount of downtime your Macs have. If that stat isn't available, see if you can find information on support costs for the two platforms within your company. You should probably try and find this stuff out surreptitiously, if at all possible.

I would be stunned if your Macs cost your company anywhere near as much as the PCs, and that would be a great stat to throw at them.

I would also try and pull together some productivity numbers from your Mac users compared to the Wintel drones in the company. That might be harder to come up with.

The same thing goes for the cost of Windows vs. the cost of Mac OS X. I hear Windows 2000, but how long before your company succumbs to Microsfot's Software Assurance Program (or whatever it is currently called). If anytime soon, which is very likely, you can figure in the annual Redmond tax to those support costs. Plus, what's the cost of X software upgrades versus new Windows versions. If you can get a cross-platform upgrade cost, that's not an issue, of course.

Now, toss in re-training time for all of the Mac users to learn the lovely world of Windows. If possible, use time estimates from your IT department, even if it is just standard time to train a new employee. There's not only the direct cost of training time (including IT's time), there is the lost cost of productivity. That has an even higher number. Figure into this the lesser amount of time it will cost to learn OS X, as that too has a cost.

Don't exaggerate this, or any of these factors, as that will allow the pinheads and charge to dismiss your arguments.

The above things really should show that moving you to the cheaper-to-buy-and-maintain Wintel hegemony will actually cost many thousands of dollars MORE for each person.

Sounds like a good approach. Not being in the desktop support department, I don't have access to our own uptime / downtime statistics for intel, but a generic survey might be point A.

Anyone know of any generic TCO surveys done on w2k vs. Mac OS X? (TCO = Total Cost of Ownership)

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Halogen wrote:
Anyone know of any generic TCO surveys done on w2k vs. Mac OS X? (TCO = Total Cost of Ownership)

That's the kind of stuff you'll find at the Apple Web site. I'm sure their PR section will have plenty of references for you. The Gartner Group is a firm that does those kinds of studies, so keep your eyes peeled for their name.

Check out the Apple Web site switch area. It has some good info and perhaps a few of the examples will work in your situation.

Have the decision makers considered the cost of retraining? I suppose they expect Mac users to jump to Windows without any formal training? One might mention (though tough to document) is lost productivity in the weeks immediately following the switch due to the radical change in operating system to Windows 2000

And, at some point in the not-tooo-distant future the Windows 2000 license may be out of date. Buying Macs now with 10.2 installed will save the obligatory round of upgrades from 2000 to XP when the time comes.

Didn't I say both of those things?

just some kind of cyber-echo, I think...

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Bryan wrote:
Didn't I say both of those things?

Maybe

But the "loudest" thing you said IMHO is to be sure not to exaggerate the benefits. It doesn't do anyone any good and only calls into question the credibility of the source and the information shared.

In my view this is a battle if inches, not miles. It would be great if everytime a Mac user brought forth a solid comparison and reasonable argument for staying Mac or going Mac everyone would agree. But sometimes the victory IMHO is getting admin folks to just replace existing, older Macs or buying one or two new ones.

Sometimes the reward isn't seen immediately, but over the long-term by just brininging the issue of Macs back into the discussion.

Many of these folks haven't looked at a Mac in years. In my experience, mentioning the Unix core of the OS X early and often really helps. It usually turns heads and gets people to listen

Well said, DT. I am opening this up to the Hot Forum Topic to bring in some more help.

1. If you deal with outside freelancers they will be using Macs. If you are not it will be difficult to find freelancers that you can work with without extra costs.
2. If you deal with printers, most printer charge more for PC files (even if they don't claim too.) They will also have extra costs for errors that will occur. Printers don't normally have PCs with all the apps so they convert which leads to problems. (I know I'm a 10 year vet in Prepress one of the largest printers in the nation.)

3. All the software need to be upgraded and there are some problems with mac to pc conversions even between the same app. PC Pagemaker to Mac Pagemaker have many font problems.

4. All the fonts have to be replaced.

5. It limits the available pool of talent. Many graphic designers will not be interested in a job that usses PCs.

Above are all good suggestions.

To be concise:
1. Total Cost of Ownership. Macs last 2-4 years longer than Wintel boxes.
2. Cost of retraining and hiring new employees that will need to be hired to replace the ones who will walk out because their needs are being ignored. Employees need empowerment, not to be dictated to by IT "geniuses" who are only out to save their own jobs.
3. Compatibility. Jaguar fully supports Active Directory, Windows FileSharing, Windows Printing using the same password authentication system. (http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/compatibility.html)
4. Stability. Unix based operating systems are actually taking back lost market share since the inception of Windows XP.
5. Security. Macs can use, but are not dependent, on Microsoft technology, the most insecure conglomeration of software in the known world.
6. Speed. Name a desktop Wintel box that can do 18 gigaflops? Mhz is not a measure of system performance.
7. Ease of use. I work in a true multiplatform environment. Win3.1 through XP, MacOS 7 through X, Unix (variants), and Linux (all flavors). Our Macs are still much easier to use.
8. Design on a PC? Get real. (ok, not a good answer, take it as editorial commentary)
9. Integrated VPN software in Jaguar. Employees can work from home when necessary without lost productivity.
10. Innovation. WinXP's latest "innovations" were all available on Macs more than two years ago. If your company wants to stay a leader, stick with the leader in technology.

If they are like any other manager, they respond to money.

I've read studies that show Macs last longer, and require less supervision from IT folk.

Just some rough ideas, off the top of my head:

1) Service bureau issues

2) Compatibility with vendors, clients, people you place advertisements with, etc.

3) Converting fonts does not work. (At least I've never seen it done reliably)

4) Work flow issues that involve custom AppleScript solutions

5) File archive/sharing issues in graphics/creative department that involve AppleShare network solution

6) Retaining and recruiting qualified graphics professionals

7) Macs don't need to be better than Windows 2000 box in all situations -- just this one. Clearly, the graphics industry is nearly as heavily populated with Macs as the accounting industry is by PCs.

8) Cost considerations: Mac boxes last longer than PC boxes in production environments. Old PCs are generally disposed of when they become too old to continue meeting their primary function, rather then being passed down. Old Macs generally are put to use doing other functions. What's the cost of finding new vendors, contractors, free lancers, printers, service bureaus...

9) There is no cost comparison for compatibility. If you spend 1,000 hours attempting to convert files unsuccessfully, you've still not converted the files.

10) Maintenance costs

well, I can think of one really good reason. Productivity. The mac OS is eaiser to use and maintain. It is a joy to look at. It is very stable. Adobe files and Lightwave files are cross platform compatible so that argument is relatively weak. Mac hardware flies on Photoshop. If you need to update something you download the new driver or whatever and install it. On windows you need to go through their "wizzard" which takes 10x longer and won't always fix your problem. Case in point: The other day I was trying to make my modem work on my Dull box (which I have because sometimes I get .exe files from clients and other PC stuff) and the wizzard wouldn't install any of the drivers that I had downloaded. There wasn't an installer for the drivers and Windoze wouldn't even recognize that I had a modem in there. On a mac if you stick a piece of hardware in there it may not run, but the computer does verify that you have something in there and tells you who its from (ie. the profiler)...

Designers need to be inspired. They need Macs. Working on a PC can be frustrating for non technical artsy types. I used to work at a place where there were two designers me and another girl. The other girl didn't know how to work on a Mac so the company bought her a PC. They ended us spending twice as much for the software for both platforms. Every day something would go wrong with this girls' PC. The tech guy would spend about an hour trying to get it back to normal. I actually would get all my work done and either 1) wait around for her to finish her stuff to give to me (if we were working on the same project) or 2) go home early.

Good design takes inspiration and if you are too depressed because of computer problems or your OS just looks plain ugly then you are less likely to be inspired. Art isn't like programming where you can sit down and type in some text and make something work.

So here is a little flash file to help you make a decision. Spread it around the office. Its the new Windows RG edition :

http://staging.factorysix.com/WindowsRG.swf

Nick Ferszt
http://www.factorysix.com

The cost in time needed to convert your documents is the big reason against switching probably, but don't forget security issues as well.

At my workplace we have a network of about 45 Windows NT machines, and twice in the past year they have been affected by email viruses which cost us a fair amount of downtime to clear.

I wished we had just a few Macs in the same network. It would have been a great comparision for management to see how they had not been affected, and an embarrassment to the IT department.

Some gotchas in addition to the excellent ones thus far:

Windows fonts are not WYSIWYG to the screen, and certainly not when printed, even in PostScript. In my experience (a lot of it in publishing houses and a newspaper) is that Windows makes a very poor graphic design box unless it is significantly, and expensively, modified. Graphics don't render properly, either, and the Microsoft applications get in the way when attempting to work with one app to do specific work (JPGs being hijacked instead of being opened by Photoshop, for instance).

Windows workstations will also not be likely to read the existing Macintosh project data until the data is moved to a Windows server that doesn't mangle the data (some data cannot be moved--it may have been created in Mac-only apps.)

To get the functionality of a typical Mac for digital video, a typical Compaq workstation would have to be upgraded by about $1300, most of it involving the installation of a DVD-R/CD-RW drive, FireWire, and decent software to edit and make movies. No guarantee that any of this will work, which increases IT service costs.

I can go on dramatically. I would be happy to send you a simple Excel spreadsheet with my research that prevented even the thought of such a conversion from happening at a recent worksite. Write me at kevspencer AT yahoo.com.